R. Crumb - R. Crumbs Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Country

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Contents

Guide

BLUES, JAZZ

&

COUNTRY

HEROES OF

BLUES, JAZZ

&

COUNTRY

HEROES OF

ILLUSTRATED BY

R. CRUMB

TEXT BY

STEPHEN CALT,

DAVID JASEN,

AND

RICHARD NEVINS

INTRODUCTION BY

TERRY ZWIGOFF

ABRAMS, NEW YORK

CONTENTS

HEROES OF THE BLUES

EARLY JAZZ GREATS

INTRODUCTION

Terry Zwigoff

I met Robert Crumb in 1970 and we quickly became friends,

sharing a love for 1920s and 30s music and trying to figure out

how to play this music ourselves. One of our pals, Al Dodge, had

traded Robert some rare records in exchange for a drawing of

a large jazz band made up entirely of cats playing all the instru-

ments of the orchestra. Every time I went over to Als house I

admired that drawing. A few years later, I found a copy of a rare

Okeh Records 78 by Freeneys Barn Dance Band. Robert wanted

the record badly, so I offered to trade it for a drawing like the one

hed done for Al. Not wanting to slave over drawing a twelve-

piece orchestra again, he suggested a string band trio instead. I

agreed, on the condition that he would color it as well, and the

resultant portrait of Dirty Dog and the Smelly Old Cat Bros.

String Band is still hanging in my record room today. It looks

like the forerunner to the depictions of old bands included here.

The portraits of musicians that make up this book were

drawn around 1980 with the idea that they would be reduced in

size and printed as trading cards. Robert drew the musicians from

existing studio and family photographs, but (even though he

was quite fascinated with old photographs) I think he was more

inspired by a love of the music on the 78s than he was by the pho-

tos themselves. In those days, Robert and I were well acquainted

with Nick Perls, who owned and operated Yazoo Records in New

York. Nick probably had the best collection in the world of orig-

inal prewar blues 78s. He reissued them on LP compilations in a

slow but steady labor of love, a labor that has continued after his

death by Shanachie Records and his old friend Richard Nevins.

Roberts original idea was to include a single music card

with each Yazoo LP, in much the same spirit as the established

trading card tradition that dates back over a century. Packages

of tobacco used to have card inserts that featured film, sports,

and war subjects. When we were kids in the 1950s, trading cards

were more likely found in a pack of gum. Over time, you could

amass a collection of these cards. Inevitably, youd realize that

one or two rare ones were missing from your collection and you

could either buy more gum in the hope of finding the cards you

needed, or

worsebe forced to deal with the extortion of

some rival collector who already owned the card you desired.

It was Nick Perls who wanted to package the cards as a

thirty-six-piece boxed set. That eliminated the trading aspect,

but gave Nick an additional item to sell rather than a bonus pre-

mium to give away with his paltry LP sales. He also had Robert

design beautiful point-of-purchase store displays for the card

sets, which are rare and collectible items today. I remember

walking around the West Village with Nick as he tried to talk the

local merchants into carrying the card sets. He was pretty

INTRODUCTION

successful. The cards were appealing and colorful and sold well

right from the start. Numerous printings were done over the

years, and the rights passed from Nick to other publishers. After

Nick died, the original artwork for the cards was sold and today

is owned by a successful film director in northern California.

(No, not me.)

Initially, Robert wanted to draw only country string bands

for the country set, but he was persuaded to include Jimmie

Rodgers, the Carter Family, and a few more well-known enter-

tainers. Robert liked these artists, but he seemed to get a bigger

kick out of celebrating the lesser-known bands. Perhaps he

wanted to give them a well-deserved bit of recognition after all

their years of obscurity. The existence of available photographs

partly determined the musicians he chose to include. Its a

minor miracle that someone had a photo of Mumford Bean and

His Itawambians, a band so obscure that their one existing 78

has only been heard by maybe a dozen hard-core country col-

lectors, and has never been reissued.

As I recall, the blues and country sets were drawn first.

I remember walking with Robert to Flax Art Supply on Market

Street in San Francisco, where he bought the Pantone sheets he

used to color them. He switched to watercolors and actually

painted the jazz cards. I would like to wax eloquent here and

impress the reader by attributing Roberts shift to painting the

jazz cards to something about the fluidity inherent in the nature

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